


shaken by your beauty (shaken)

by lanthanesthai



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Bad Parenting, Best Friends, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Mentions of drugs, Military Academy, Non-Linear Narrative, Off-screen death, Reverse Chronology, Roommates, Unrequited Love, implied rape of a minor, nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-15 07:03:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2219967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanthanesthai/pseuds/lanthanesthai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At four years old, Quentin is quiet and awkward and shy.</p><p>At eighteen, he is (helplessly) in love.</p><p>At four years old, Christopher is confident, spoilt and clever.</p><p>At eighteen, he's a wreck.</p><p>[crtistoquinn drabbles]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you, resplendent

**Author's Note:**

> this story can be read in either direction, so start here and work your way down, or start at the bottom and work your way up

 

_you resplendent, waiting by_

_the fire, and i, attendant upon_

_you, shaken by your beauty_

 

_shaken by your beauty_

_shaken._

 

**Four**

 

The suitcases stacked high in the hallway reach higher than he does. He measures himself against them while his parents stand in the living room. They face each other, but for once there isn't any shouting or screaming. They look at each other, silent. The only real sound for the rest of the day is the sound of the door opening and closing.

Quentin is in his room. He doesn't find out until morning which of his parents has left. They didn't say goodbye.

 

**Five**

 

The first time he goes to an art gallery, he goes as his father's accessory.

He stands and allows people to coo at him, leaning down to ruffle his hair, asking him how old he is. It isn't long before he loses his father in the crowd of suits and cocktail dresses. He suspects that it was at least partially deliberate—but Quentin doesn't bother to look for him. Instead, he wanders up and down the endless corridors, running his fingers along the red velvet and over the metal poles. He longs to trace the edges of the frames that border the pictures, but he isn't tall enough and they're too far away.

The paintings fascinate him, even if he doesn't understand.

 

**Six**

 

His father gets called into school. His teachers think that there's something wrong with his behaviour. They think he's too quiet for a six year old boy because he sits on the field by himself, book in hand. Any attempts at conversation go ignored.

His father listens—quiet but obviously impatient—then inquires about his academic progress.

"He's very bright," the teacher begins, "but—"

His father sighs and stands, then tells them that they shouldn't have wasted his time. He warns them not to do it again.

After he leaves, Quentin does too, and he pretends that he can't hear them talking. They say a lot of different things, but they seem to agree that Quentin's father is very good looking, but unapproachable.

Handsome but cold.

 

**Seven**

 

The first conversation in two years he has with his father (that isn't an exchange of 'good morning' or goodnight') happens because Quentin fails a communication class. He also drops marks in other subjects due to a lack of participation. He isn't sure how to explain to his teachers that he doesn't know how to communicate clearly. He never learned. Why talk when nobody's listening?

He redoes his presentation. The result is still disastrous

—he stammers and squeaks, doesn't look anyone in the eye and reads straight from his notes—but less so than his first attempt.

 

**Eight**

 

His father answers the phone and walks into his office. He leaves his laptop on the kitchen table, open on a Google search about art camps. He has a few tabs open for camps in the south of Florida.

He finds this confusing for two reasons. One, is that they live in New York. The other is that he has never been much good at art, and his father has never seemed to care much. When he’s displeased with something, his father has always been sure to let him know.

He hears his father coming out of his office, so he stops snooping and goes to get a glass of water, which is what he came for. They pass by each other in the hallway, but neither of them says anything.

His father never brings up the art camp, and within the week Quentin stops thinking about it.

 

**Nine**

 

A lady moves in and she tells him to call her Jessica. She has blonde hair in a long plait that swings about her waist. She’s slender and graceful and her smiles are practically beatific. Most of the time she speaks in English, but she says the odd phrase in Italian. Quentin finds the language at odds with her appearance. The sounds her mouth make don't fit the shape of her mouth as she makes them. It's discomfiting. Everything about Jessica makes him uncomfortable.

Quentin has never seen his father look at somebody the way that he looks at her. He wonders if that's what love looks like.

She’s kind to him so long as Quentin’s father is in the house. When he isn’t, it’s a different story. When he tells his father, how she sometimes behaves, his father tells him to "get the fuck out" of his office.

By then end of the month he’s in a cab, surrounded by suitcases, on his way to boarding school to “teach him some respect”.

It's clearly Jessica's idea, because his father tells him it's a prep school. Quentin’s done his research, though. Gervase Academy is a military academy.

 

**Ten**

 

Quentin is tall for his age, gangly. It’s as if he hasn’t quite worked out how to use his limbs because they extend further out than he expects. He’s clumsy too—and awkward.

He’s first in every class except for physical education. His teachers are thrilled but he knows that phys-ed is the only class that matters. Maybe not to the adults or his father, or even to himself, but to the other students.

The bullying is relentless, but he’s learned his lesson about asking adults for help already.

Awkward, though he may be, it doesn’t detract from his appearance. He earns a nickname within the first month: ‘fucking queer’. Not long after, he picks up another one, ‘pretty boy’. Most, when they say it, sound derisive. Others—something else. The ‘something else’ sends shivers down his spine, and he stays well out of the way of anyone who looks at him like _that_.

He points out, once, that it’s kind of ‘fucking queer’ to think another guy is pretty. He gets a broken arm for his trouble.

He learns that lesson too.

 

**Eleven**

Halfway through his second year, Quentin is assigned a new roommate. His last one had gotten expelled for starting a fire outside the teacher’s dorms.

It’s someone that he has never seen before, and he falls in love somewhere between the books moving from the boy’s suitcase to his half of the shelf. It’s afterwards that he notices just how attractive he is.

Quentin, in comparison, is not pretty at all. Or, if he is, then his roommate is something else entirely.

 _Beautiful_ , his mind supplies, but he keeps this to himself.

“I’m Christopher,” the boy says, “or Valentin.” Even though it seems like courtesy at best, Quentin feels like he’s being let in on a secret. “Not Chris, not Kit, not Critt and _for the love of God_ , not Topher. Are we clear?” The glare he levels across the room would scare him if he weren’t too busy smiling.

“Crystal. I’m Quentin,” he replies. “Just Quentin.” Then he pauses. “Can I call you Val?”

He’s sure Christopher thinks he’s weird by now, but so does everyone else, and it’s not as if he would be wrong.

 

**Twelve**

 

At the end of the year, when the time comes for rooms to be reassigned, Quentin puts a request to be paired with Christopher again. Not because they’re friends, or anything, because Christopher isn’t _friends_ with anybody. Not because Christopher is nice to him because, apparently, Christopher doesn’t _do_ nice.

He does it because for the most part, Christopher ignores him, and that’s as much as he’s come to expect from anybody. He is a clean and unobtrusive roommate, and for reasons that he can't name, Quentin _likes_ him (and is still hopelessly in love).

He figures the odds are pretty good. Christopher has managed to piss off _everyone_ so no one else is going to request him. He can’t imagine Christopher with his cool blue eyes and devil may care attitude filling out the 'preferences' form.

When the rooming arrangements are announced and he and Christopher end up together, Quentin likes to think that he sees him smile.

 

**Thirteen**

 

“I’m rooming with you next year, Quinn,” Christopher declares. (Christopher never asks, he _demands_. He's someone used to getting everything that he wants, whether he says ‘please’ or not).

They haven’t really spoken all year. Not that either he or Christopher ever really talk to anybody. It makes Quentin’s week to the extent that he’s willing to overlook the use of a nickname.

When he goes home for the summer, Jessica is no longer there. He doesn't bring her up, and neither does his father. His father tells him that he can come home if he wants to, but Quentin shakes his head and says that he’d like to stay.

He doesn't pretend that the largest contributing factor is anything—anyone—other than Christopher. Val.

His father is obviously surprised, but he doesn’t admit it, he just nods. Quentin wasn’t expecting anything else.

 

**Fourteen**

 

He walks into their shared room to find Christopher shouting down the phone in Russian. Quentin has finally managed to put some muscle on and build up some stamina, making the assault course easier every time he completes it. He's naturally slender, though, so he still has to work twice as hard as everyone else.

He still finds his subjects easy, but he knows that if Christopher cared enough to put the effort in, he’d fall to second place.

Whoever is on the other end says something and Christopher is like a puppet with his strings cut. Quentin is next to him in an instant, and Christopher’s face is pressed against his chest, his body jolting with every sob. He’s shaking.

When Quentin wakes up the next morning, Christopher is gone.

He returns after a week, eyes hollow, noticeably thinner. Quentin doesn’t mention it.

Christopher seems grateful.

 

**Fifteen**

 

Quentin thinks he could be blind and still be able to notice the way some of the other boys look at Christopher. It’s the way his father looked at Jessica. It’s the way some people still look at him. It's 'pretty boy'.

But he’s not so awkward anymore, so for the most part, the teasing is kept to a minimum.

He knows that Christopher sometimes sneaks out at night and Quentin knows what he does. It's something else they don't talk about.

Even if he didn’t, the rumours and the whispers of _slut, whore_ would have clued him in. Once or twice he hears them bragging. It makes him feel sick, but he reminds himself with that Christopher is his friend and that no matter where he goes, he always comes back.

“Christopher was good, but I bet both of you would be even better,” Jack McCarthy says. Jack wakes up the next morning in a dinghy afloat on the lake. He can’t swim.

Quentin takes the credit. He catches hell but it’s worth every lap of the assault course, worth every drill, worth the shouting he gets when his father is called in.

It’s worth it all for the way that Christopher looks at him afterwards.

 

**Sixteen**

 

When Quentin gets back from class, there’s someone sat on Christopher’s bed, typing rapidly on a laptop. He looks up and smiles.

While Christopher will always be the most attractive person Quentin has ever seen, the 'someone' is a close second. He says he’s waiting for Christopher to get back, and Quentin nods, trying to ignore the way his stomach rolls with nausea.

When Christopher returns, the boy gets up to leave. He smiles at Quentin one last time before he leaves, blue eyes sparkling in amusement.

“Is he a friend of yours?” Quentin asks, a moment later, trying to keep his voice even.

Christopher gives him an odd but knowing look. “Atlas has nothing you need to be jealous of,” he says.

 

**Seventeen**

 

Quentin goes home with Christopher for the holidays. He meets Christopher's loud and eccentric father and his extroverted and eccentric mother (who seems set on mothering Quentin to death).

Looking at them both, Quentin can see where Christopher got his looks from (though not his surly, antisocial nature).

Christopher is drunk and they are lying out in the garden while he points out constellations and talks about the meaning of the universe (he says he's not sure there is one).

Quentin lies and listens. He considers dragging Christopher back inside before they both catch hypothermia. He’s a breath away from suggesting it when Christopher stops mid-sentence and turns onto his side.

They make eye-contact because Quentin is looking at Christopher. Quentin is _always_ looking at Christopher.

There is a pause, a heartbeat long, then Christopher says, “You know you're my best friend, don't you Q?”

And Quentin dies of happiness, just a little bit.

 

**Eighteen**

 

He finds out that he has a half-brother. He lives somewhere in Florida.

Quentin knows about his half-sister. He likes her because she is cute and inquisitive and smarter than he and Christopher put together. He also loves her because he just _does_ in a perfect and inexplicable way, because he can’t _not_. He falls in love with her the same way he fell in love with Christopher—instantly, irrevocably.

He finds out by accident.

He’s not sure how he feels about having an older brother (even if it is only by a few months) but he supposes that it doesn’t really change anything. He thinks back to the web page filled with search results for art camps and things start to make sense.

He tells Christopher, one day, and Christopher looks up from his book, glasses balanced unevenly on the end of his nose. “What difference does it make?” Christopher says, “Having one brother or having two?”

Quentin doesn’t pretend that he doesn’t know what he means.

It hurts, but it’s kind of nice too.

 

Christopher pretends not to notice the flash of pain that runs across Quentin’s features. For a moment, he’s struck by guilt because he knows exactly what he’s said. Then Quinn smiles and he has to smile back because nothing in the world can possibly be wrong when Quentin is smiling like that.

 

**Seventeen**

 

He tries not to think about how much he likes having Quinn in his house. He doesn’t much like having Quinn around his parents (who still spend every Christmas together). This is partly because it means that he has to be around his parents as well.

When he gets tired of his parents making subtle hints about he and Quinn's—they hope—future relationship, Christopher stands up. He wraps his hand around Quentin’s wrist and pulls, dragging him outside and into the garden. He sprints until they’re far enough away that the house is obscured by trees. Halfway through, he had let go of Quentin’s wrist, but he didn’t need to turn around to know that Quinn was still running behind him.

They lie down on the grass and Christopher talkes and talks and talks. He isn't sure if Quinn is listening but he isn’t interrupting and he in’t leaving and that's good enough for him.

Christopher is drunk. Just a little bit.

He's drunk a lot recently.

He turns to look at Quinn, who, as always, is already looking at him (he doesn't even bother to look away anymore) and says—something. By the time he’s sober, he no longer remembers what.

What he does remember is the look on Quentin’s face. Despite the hangover he has in the morning, and despite the disapproving looks he gets from his parents—there is not a doubt in his mind that it’s worth it.

 

**Sixteen**

 

He cuts class and heads back to the dorm that he shares with Quentin, hoping to catch up on the sleep he missed the night before. Being the campus slut is more exhausting than he would have credited it with.

He is brought up short by Atlas sitting on his bed. He hasn’t seen him in two years—since the funeral—but there’s no doubt that it’s him. Even if his blue eyes and dark hair were more common than they were, they have known each other for far too long for something like time to dull recognition.

Atlas gives him a speech, while writing something up on his laptop in which he tells Christopher to get his shit together. Christopher walks out halfway through, Atlas doesn’t follow him.

When he returns, Atlas is leaving. The flirtatious smile he sends Quentin’s way makes something dark and possessive curl in his gut. He may never have said it, but Christopher knows that Quinn isn’t exactly straight, and Christopher knows what Atlas looks like.

He goes to bed that night feeling irritated for reasons he doesn’t care to examine.

 

**Fifteen**

 

Since Robin, Christopher’s behaviour has been what a psychiatrist would call self-destructive. He’s become a mess of cliches. Drugs, alcohol and sex.

Surprisingly—or maybe it’s not surprising at all—there’s more of the last than of the previous two. Sometimes he has sex to get his hands drugs and alcohol. Sometimes, the drugs and alcohol help with the substandard sex.

Not that he knows what good sex is like, of course. Which means he can’t really say that the sex is bad, either.

What he can say is that it doesn’t feel the way he hears people talk about it. To be honest, he doesn't really enjoy it.

They talk about it only once. "Val, why do you keep doing this?" Quentin asks, for the first and last time.

Christopher just shrugs, because he doesn't really know. He can't help it.

Some part of him thinks that he might be trying to understand. He isn't sure how to put that in words.

 

**Fourteen**

 

The whole week passes in a blur. When he looks back on it, he can’t really remember the sequence of events—just a series of images clouded by a mental haze of black.

He doesn’t like to think about it too much (or at all), but when he does, he remembers the funeral first: sixteen people—black, black, black.

Then the phone call: his mother was too distraught to be coherent, sobbing in broken Russian. Trying to decipher what she was saying was like assembling a puzzle in the dark. Then it clicked.

Heroin. Overdose. _They found him too late._

Landon: Robin’s best friend—Atlas’ brother—eyes rimmed red. Two years clean. Looking heartbroken. _Guilty._ Black, black, black.

When he gets back to the academy, he doesn’t talk about it, and Quentin doesn’t ask.

 _Thank you_ , he thinks. _Thank you, thank you, thank you_.

 

**Thirteen**

 

Despite Quentin’s idiosyncrasies—such as the _staring_ (he’s had people be fascinated with the way he looks before, but not like _this_ , not for this long. They’re usually bored after a week or two and it’s been _two years_ —what is he _looking at_?)—he’s an easy person to room with. Christopher tells himself that the reason he wants to room with Quinn next year is because he can’t be bothered to get used to living with someone else.

“The sun isn’t a star, it’s the fucking sun,” some asshole says while Quentin gives a presentation in physics.

Quentin pauses, a flush rising on his face, and he stammers through the rest of his slideshow.

Anger rises in Christopher, hot and bright, but his face remains impassive.

They walk back to their room together after the lesson ends. Quentin’s eyes are trained on the ground, and he has his books clutched to his chest like a shield.

“The sun isn’t a star, my ass,” Christopher mutters under his breath, just loud enough for Quentin to hear. “I guess common sense isn’t so common after all.”

He sneaks a look at Quentin out of the corner of his eye, and almost trips over his own feet. He’s seen him smile before, but he’s never seen him smile like that.

Quentin has dimples. Really cute dimples. They make Christopher want to hug him. Someone with dimples like that didn’t suit a name like Quentin at all.

Christopher tells himself that the change of heart has nothing to do with the dimples. He is almost convinced.

 

**Twelve**

 

He’s sick of his first year already. His roommate is a weirdo and his so-called peers are assholes and he would quite like to be anywhere but where he is.

It doesn’t stop him from requesting Quentin as his roommate for the next year. He justifies this by saying that living with a weirdo is better than living with an asshole.

It helps that Quentin—and what a pretentious name that is—has more than two brain cells to rub together which is more than he can say for anyone else. All the beating the shit out of each other that they do makes it hard for them to retain IQ points. Going home is the best thing that happens to him all year.

He has two new stepbrothers: Benjamin and Thomas.

Benjamin is nineteen, loud and affable. He’s also sharply intelligent, which makes him and Christopher’s father instant friends. Thomas is sixteen, similar enough in appearances to his brother and mother: dark red hair, pale skin and forest green eyes—but he’s different in nature. There’s something dark and predatory about him and for the whole of the summer, Christopher avoids being alone with him. He’d never admit to being scared, but he is.

One morning he discovers that he and Thomas are the only ones in the house. Christopher’s father and the siblings' mother are both at work. Benjamin is staying at his girlfriend’s house.

Christopher locks himself in his room for the majority of the day, but when a furtive trip to the kitchen doesn’t yield anything more exciting than an empty milk carton, he relaxes. Around midday, he goes to take a shower. He locks the door, of course, but it doesn’t stop Thomas from getting in.

Water turning cold, he closes his eyes and lets it happen, knowing there’s nothing he can do to stop it now.

 

**Eleven**

 

Christopher is pissed. Not that you could tell by the way that he’s calmly arranging books on his shelf, but he derives a perverse amount of pleasure from the sound each heavy volume makes as it thuds against the wood before he slides it into place.

His parents have always been strange, he knows this. He knows that they love him and he knows that they love Robin and he knows that in some strange way, they probably love each other as well. As far as dysfunctional families go, they’re pretty happy.

That doesn’t stop him from being pissed. He couldn’t give two shits about the fact his parents are getting divorced. It didn’t take a genius to work out that there was a lot less shouting in his house when one or more of his parents was busy with _something_ (sometimes someone) else.

The divorce was a good thing. It would work wonders for their relationship and it should probably have happened years ago.

Christopher is _pissed_ because instead of resolving custody disputes like civilised human beings, his parents are behaving like fucking children. They can’t work out how to share the toy, so they’ve decided that neither of them should have it. Gervase Academy was the only place with a vacancy on such short notice. Military school is a fucking joke, but Christopher doesn't find it very funny.

 

**Ten**

 

When his parents start laying into each other, Robin takes him out for ice cream. Christopher knows that his parents don’t like each other all the time and he’s heard the stuff that they’re screaming at each other before. The wording changes and the swear words are in different places, but they say the same things over and over and over. (The problem is, neither of them are listening.)

He usually complains when he thinks someone is being patronising, but he likes Robin (most of the time, anyway) and he’s hardly going to say no to free ice-cream. So he lets himself be dragged out of the house and down the road.

While they sit in flimsy chairs at an uneven table outside the ice-cream cart, Christopher makes use of his long eyelashes to procure himself and his brother an extra scoop each. He can feel Robin's eyes on him, but he avoids looking back for as long as he can.

“What?” he says, to the bewildered look being cast in his direction, fiddling with the plastic spoon.

Robin shakes his head before saying, “One day, you are going to be very pretty and very, very dangerous. Like a _landysh_. A lily-of-the-valley.” It occurs to him that Robin might be drunk or high or maybe both.

Christopher isn’t sure if this is a compliment or not, but he takes it as one regardless. He smiles, all small white teeth and wide blue eyes.

“I hope so,” he says.

 

**Nine**

 

He sits in one of the seats closest to the catwalk, in a row that runs along the side. He’s almost completely in shadow as the majority of the lights are concentrated on the stage.

“ _Strutting, zvyozdochka_ ,” his mother would remind him, “there is no place for walking here.”

Robin hates being in Russia, because it usually means that that _mama_ is working. _Mama_ working means they will have to spend hours and hours a day in an over air-conditioned building watching people shout at each other over little things and changing clothes every twenty minutes. Robin says that if he wanted to see that, he might as well have stayed at home.

Some part of Christopher— _Valentin, lubov moya, always Valentin when we are in Russia, v poryadke?_ —loves it, though. He doesn’t always understand the clothes (in fact he never does) but there’s something fascinating about it. Robin jokes that it’s so awful that Christopher can’t make himself look away.

When he wants fresh air, he goes and finds his brother, who is either by the back door or on the roof. He usually has a cigarette in one hand—which their parents know about—and a bottle in the other—which they do not.

“If you ever wonder what drives me to drink,” Robin slurs, “then it’s _this_.”

His hand sweeps in an arc and Christopher— _Valentin_ —can’t tell if he's indicating the fashion shows or if he's gesturing at everything.

 

**Eight**

 

He picks up a pair of drumsticks during a therapy session. It’s supposed to help him channel his anger into something more productive. Even at eight years old, this is ridiculous to Christopher. He knows exactly what he is, and it definitely isn’t angry. He’s indifferent at best. He doesn’t quite have the words for it yet but he knows he doesn’t care enough to be angry.

He doesn’t act out (and what exactly is he acting out anyway? If he’s being given a role, he’d like it to be a challenging one) because he’s _angry_.

What would be the point? What would it solve? Getting angry has never fixed anything.

He throws tables and chairs and starts fights because he’s _bored_. Of all the emotions Christopher has ever felt, boredom is by far the worst. Listlessness. When he’s bored for too long, he’s willing to do anything to satisfy it. It usually leads to him doing something stupid or something destructive.

Not that he minds.

He sits next to Robin in one of the chairs outside the head teacher’s office, his knuckles still raw and red, his lip still bleeding.

Robin gives him a searching look, before leaning back in his chair. He closes his eyes and tilts onto the hind legs, swaying dangerously.

“One day, Val,” he says, “one day, you’re going to have nothing to break and you’re going to destroy yourself.”

Christopher looks down at his hands. He doesn’t think before replying.

“Good,” he says, “good.”

 

**Seven**

 

His parents separate and his father meets somebody new almost immediately. This somebody new comes with a child called Eden three days a week.

Christopher hates pretty much everybody but he can’t find it in him to hate the small, shy thing with messy hair and green eyes and a way of speaking and walking and existing that timidly whispers that to bother anyone—really.

Usually, Christopher knows better than to go anywhere near people that he can easily take advantage of because he knows he’ll be tempted to do just that. Yet, there is something about the boy in floral jumpers and pink trainers which he can’t help but like. He isn’t sure if it's because Eden's hair is fluffy and downy; if it's because he's kind of adorable when he really wants a hug (which is almost all the time), or if it's because he feels a spark of protectiveness every time Eden flinches away from his father.

It’s six months before Christopher’s parents get back together, and despite the fact that he missed seeing his mother quite a lot, he actually had quite a good time. He still sees Eden three days a week.

 

**Six**

 

For his birthday, his parents take him to the largest toy shop they can find. He spends five minutes wandering the aisles before coming to an abrupt stop. He points at something above his head, far out of reach.

“I want that one,” he says.

His parents try and convince him to look around the rest of the store first to see if there’s anything else he likes before he makes a decision. He shakes his head.

They take it off the shelf and ask if he wants to look for something else as well.

“No,” he says, levelling them with his best six year old glare, “this is the only one I want.”

Robin stands to the side and smiles.

**Five**

 

When they move house, Christopher moves schools. He ‘loses’ his reading diary, then lies to his new teacher about which reading stage he's on. The orange books are taking too long and they’re too easy. It’s _boring_.

His parents are always busy, so Robin is his reading buddy. He’s the one that signs his reading card, saying that Christopher has read the pages he’s meant to at home.

He notices, of course, when Christopher comes home with a book three stages ahead of where he was last week, holding it close against his chest like he’s scared someone’s going to take it from him, but Robin doesn’t say anything.

He raises an eyebrow and pats the seat beside him, ruffling Christopher's hair when he eventually sits down.

 

**Four**

 

He learns to write his name. His father teaches him in the Roman alphabet and his mother in the Russian one.

In one of them he writes, _Christopher McLain, Christopher McLain, Christopher McLain_. In the other he writes, _Valentin Leskov, Valentin Leskov, Valentin Leskov_.

So busy writing is he that at first he doesn’t realise that even though they are both his name they do not say the same thing.

He asks Robin, “Which one is my real name? Valentin or Christopher?”

Robin runs his hand through his brother's hair. “ _Braht_ ,” he says, “you are asking entirely the wrong questions to entirely the wrong person. Go ask father and _mama_ , okay?”

He goes.

He waits until his parents are in the same room and then he asks, “ _Mama,_ who am I? Am I Christopher or Valentin?”

“Oh, _zvyozdochka_ ,” _my little star_ , his mother says, coming forwards to cup his face in her hands. “Don’t you know? You are anyone who you want to be.”

 

**-**

_you resplendent, waiting by_

_the fire, and i, attendant upon_

_you, shaken by your beauty_

 

_shaken by your beauty_

_shaken._


	2. i, attendant upon you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin wonders when he's going to stop doing this to himself.
> 
> (He already knows the answer:  
> Not any time soon.)

“Well, Quentin,” Christopher drawled, sliding into the passenger seat, “what an unexpected surprise. What brings you to this side of town?”

Quentin kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead, his fists tightening on the steering wheel hard enough to make the leather creak. “Just shut the fucking door and put on your seatbelt,” he snapped. “I’m not in the mood for this tonight.”

Christopher’s smirk slipped off his face and he rolled his eyes before doing as directed. There was silence in the car until the bass shaking the roads was too far away to affect the car and until Durian was well beyond the rear view mirror.

Christopher pushed the button for the window and rested his arm on the side as he stared out at the buildings they passed, his blonde hair whipped into his face by the wind.

Quentin turned right. “So,” he began, voice tight. “What was it today? Heroin? Cocaine? Ecstasy? All of the above?” He punctuated each suggestion with a vicious wave of his hand, but he still didn’t look in any other direction other than straight ahead. “Your pupils are so dilated that I can hardly see your irises.”

Christopher hadn’t seen him look.

It was a warm night, and if they were anywhere other than in the middle of the city, the sky would have been something other than light-pollution black. “Don’t start,” Christopher groaned, sliding down in his seat.

“Don’t start,” Quentin echoed, incredulous, “don’t start.”

Christopher hoped that, for once, Quentin would let it go. That for once, he’d a get a free ride home without the lecture that came with it.

“You know what, Christopher?” Quentin said, not giving him time to reply. “You know what? Fuck you. Fuck. You. I’m sick of getting calls at four in the morning because you’ve taken God knows what, and you’d prefer to not have to blow someone to get home safe—I am so—fucking—sick of it.”

Christopher shrugged. “Who said you have to come?” he asked, “if I’m ‘disrupting your beauty sleep’,” he made sure the air quotes were obvious, “then you can send a fucking taxi, okay? I know you can afford it or whatever, but I’ll pay you back if that’s what this is about.”

The moment the words left his mouth, inebriated as he was, he knew it was the wrong thing to say. He wound the window back up, as he felt the temperature in the car plumet a few degrees.

Christopher expected to be ignored, and then given the silent treatment for a few days until Quentin thawed and started talking to him again. Then he would go out to another club and do something stupid and he’d call Quinn to come pick him up and he would, just like he always did. Rinse and repeat.

What he didn’t expect was for Quentin to be pissed enough to miss their turn.

“Quinn, what are you doing that was our— _govno_ —what the hell was that?” Christopher shouted, digging his nails into the upholstery. He tried to calm his breathing and even his heart rate after Quentin’s almost violent—but definitely unexpected—turn into the rest stop. The wheels were smoking.

Christopher was still recovering when he heard the click of a seatbelt and the door on the driver’s side slamming shut. The cocaine was still going through his system, though he had crashed hours ago, and the spike of adrenaline had almost sent him into panic. When he had calmed himself down, he followed suit, climbing out of the car to see Quentin wearing holes in his shoes pacing up and down.

“What the hell was that?” Christopher demanded, slamming the car door for emphasis.

Quentin froze, turning to rest his hands on his car, and looking at Christopher over the hood. “That was for being a self-absorbed ignorant bastard and I’ve said it already tonight but I’m so fucking sick of it!” Christopher jumped back as Quinn’s fist connected with his bodywork, leaving a dent that was going to have to be hammered out in the morning.

“What’s the hell’s wrong with you?” Christopher asked, throwing his hands up in defeat. “It’s not as if this is the first time or something.”

“That’s exactly the fucking point.”

For a brief moment Christopher wondered if Quentin was drunk himself because he’d doubled the amount of swearing he had done in Christopher’s knowledge in fewer than ten minutes. This was not the case, of course, as not only was even Christopher not that stupid, but Quentin didn't drink.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I’m so—so sick of picking you up in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere surrounded by people you don’t know and who would probably really like to take advantage of you.” Quentin said, voice dropping in decibel to an almost reasonable tone. A strong wind picked up and Christopher shivered against it. Quentin hardly moved.

“I’m sick of the fact that you make it so easy for them to. They don’t have to get you drunk or high because you’re more than fucking willing to do it by yourself and you don’t understand how stupid that is or how reckless and every single time you call me I pick up and I’m sick of it—”

“—if you’re so worried then why don’t you come with me instead of bitching about it afterwards, when—”

“Shut up!” Quentin shouted, voice reverberating in darkness. “Just shut the fuck up and listen, will you?” Quentin took a deep breath. “I get that you have this thing where sometimes you have to get some things out of your system, okay? I get that. It’s not even the fact that it’s drugs or alcohol—though you know as well as I do that it’s stupid as screw all, and don’t bother denying it. It’s the fact that you can do without it and you have and still you put yourself in dangerous situations because you need the fucking rush it gives you.

“Do you know why I don’t come with you? Because you’re a fucking adult and you shouldn’t need your best friend to babysit you. It’s pathetic and you know it and I don’t understand why you still do it but you do and you keep on calling and I keep on coming and I will always keep on coming and you know that to—that’s why you keep doing it. And I’ve put up with some stupid shit on your part in the six years I’ve known you. Some really stupid shit and I’m still here. Why? Because you’re my best friend and despite what you seem to think, there are people that care what happen to you but that doesn’t make me any less sick of it.”

“Then why don’t you stop caring?” Christopher said, voice coming out harsher than he meant it to. “Why the hell don’t you just leave me to my self-destructive ways and go back to your high-rise apartment in the middle of one of the most expensive cities in the world and your maids and butlers and—”

“Don’t act like you couldn’t have all of that if you wanted to! Your parents are richer than mine are, okay? Why the fuck do you have to make this about money?”

“If it’s not about money then what the fuck is it about, because I have no idea!” Christopher screamed back.

“It’s about the fact that I’m in love with you, you asshole. You worthless excuse for a friend—you complete and utter bastard. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Christopher had never felt more sober than he did at that moment, beer, vodka, crack and all. He tried to reply but his mouth just fell open and any words he could have uttered didn’t process correctly then proceeded to stick in his throat. It was as if they were choking him.

Quentin’s laugh was bitter. “Don’t act like you didn’t know. Everyone knows. Everybody. I’ve probably been in love with you since I was an awkward twelve year old and you started putting the Complete Works of Goya on your shelf and it was in the original German and you knew, we just don’t fucking talk about it and that’s okay. That’s okay because I’m not expecting anything from you. I don’t want anything from you. I just—it just—”

At first Christopher thought the hitch in Quinn’s voice was more laughter but there was a eureka moment when everything clicked into place, a shift in perspective—when the vase became two faces and the lines turned out to be the same length. Christopher liked to think of himself as a believer in the idea that nothing was impossible, but among the many things he never thought he’d live to see, Quentin crying was one of them.

He tried speak again, but he couldn’t force the words out of his mouth.

Quentin took a deep, shuddering breath. “It just fucking kills me when you do this. It doesn’t take me so long to reach you because I ‘drive like I have early-onset arthritis’, you know,” he said, “It takes me so long to reach you because every time I see your name come up on my phone at night I have a panic attack because I can’t help but think that this is the time it’s going to be a doctor, or a paramedic or a policeman telling me that something’s happened to you, and then I have to calm myself down so I don’t crash the moment I get behind the wheel.

“It’s not as if I picked this, you know. I wouldn’t be in love with you if I could help it.” Quentin smiled, but he didn't look amused. “Being in love with you is so fucking exhausting. That’s what I’m sick of. I’m sick of worrying about you all the time because you think you’re oh, so capable of looking after yourself. I’m sick of being scared to watch the news in the morning in case your face ends up on my TV screen and I’m sick—I’m sick of—of— _God_.”

When Quentin broke down and Christopher’s mouth didn’t seem as if it would be producing sound any time soon, he opened the car door and got back into his seat, closing it behind him.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, listening to the muffled sounds of Quentin crying, but it seemed like an age. Eyes closed, he tilted his head up towards the ceiling, trying to combat the nausea that was settling in his chest. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was feeling—not all of it—but he was used to the feeling of disgust, especially when it was directed at himself.

Eventually, Quentin got back into the car, shutting the door so softly that Christopher wasn’t sure it had locked. It was Quinn as Christopher had never seen him—hair dishevelled, clothes rumpled and eyes red, and glassy. He was shaking, still, but Christopher wasn’t sure if it was from cold or from emotion. He turned the heating on just in case.

Quinn looked like hell—worse, even, than after the ten sets of the assault course he’d had to do for a detention he’d gotten covering for Christopher.

They sat there for a minute or two, Christopher wanting to say something and not knowing what; Quentin gazing straight through the windshield, thousand-yard stare in full force.

The air was thick and Christopher began to feel claustrophobic. The longer the silence lasted the more inclined Christopher felt towards talking, even though he knew it would make things better not worse. Just before Christopher reached breaking point, Quentin clicked his seat belt into place, turning the radio on and turning the volume up.

The Brahms was far too loud as it echoed around the car, but it got Quentin’s point across nice and clear. Whatever Christopher had to say, he didn’t want to hear. Christopher didn’t blame him, he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear himself either.

The music dropped to a normal volume just as Quentin pulled up outside Christopher’s house—or, more accurately, his parents'. He didn’t turn to look as Christopher climbed out of the car, but he did when Christopher tapped his shoulder to get his attention.

“What?” he asked.

Christopher tried not to wince at how raw his voice sounded. “I—” he started, “I’m sorry.”

Quentin laughed, equally as mirthless as his previous attempts. “No you aren’t,” he said, leaning over to grasp the door handle, “but it's not like that's going to stop me from forgiving you.”

He closed the passenger side door with a quiet click.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 thank you for reading about these losers

**Author's Note:**

> this story can be read in either direction, so start at the top and work your way down, or start here and work your way up


End file.
